2015 is the centenary of
Scriabin’s death; Twelfth Night, on which this Wigmore Hall recital took place,
was also his birthday. There could be little gainsaying Garrick Ohlsson’s
achievement in the performance of these piano works, but I am afraid I was less
than convinced of their stature as a whole, the White Mass Sonata for me certainly the highlight. It is perhaps a
cheap point to say that Scriabin’s downright ludicrous ambitions were never
achieved; how could they be? Take the never-finished – how could it have been? –
Mysterium, which in the words of
Geoffrey Norris’s programme note, ‘was to start with bells hung from clouds
over the Himalayas and to end with the dawn of humanity on a higher plane of
enlightenment’. I am not sure, however, that many of the piano pieces even
successfully fulfil more modest expectations. That surprised me, givn a remark
I recalled from Pierre Boulez, who said, when conducting some of Scriabin’s
music, that he found the piano music more interesting. I suppose it depends
which piano music; at its best, I should agree, but otherwise, I should unhesitatingly
prefer to hear The Poem of Ecstasy.

The opening Prelude in A
minor was promising enough, Chopin’s example strong in both work and Ohlsson’s
performance. (Throughout, I was reminded of his experience as a Chopin
pianist.) The Second Sonata – I find it difficult to understand in what sense
any of the pieces called ‘sonata’ have anything much to do with sonata
principles – offered admirably delicate playing, but proved one of the works at
which I found myself most at a loss as to what it amounted to in compositional
terms. I wondered whether Ohlsson might have made more of the contrast between
the two movements, but am perfectly willing to allow that any fault may have
lain with the work itself. Of the two following Etudes, the D-flat major work
offered welcome brightness of contrast, amidst the minor-ish mode meandering
previously heard. But it was with the F-sharp major Sonata (no.4), that we
encountered what was, at least to my ears, a more interesting work, much more
interesting. Salon aspects seemed to have disappeared from Scriabin’s writings,
and the melodic material sounded far more appropriate to the harmonies. It
would be difficult, though, to argue that, even as a short ‘sonata’, it lacked
longueurs. The White Mass Sonata,
which concluded the first half, offered a more succinct example of Scriabin’s ‘ecstatic’
style, the weird would-be apotheosis of its conclusion a challenge both in work
and in performance.

Désir, with which the second half opened,
offered attractive, post-Tristan
harmonies, seeming to hint at the Poem of
Ecstasy, whilst retaining the welcome virtue of smaller form and genre. The
impression Ohlsson gave was of something not wholly unlike late Liszt. His
programming here made a great deal of sense, the Sixth Sonata seeming to grow
out of its melodies and harmonies, although the sonata undoubtedly voiced
darker moods. Ohlsson retained the somewhat paradoxical improvisatory quality
the music appears to demand, or at least to encourage. That said, I found the
piece again rather outstayed its welcome. The D-flat major Etude sounded more
like an Etude than its predecessors. Once again, the point of departure in
Chopin was readily discernible. Likewise the C-sharp minor Etude which
followed, the twist of tonality a welcome feature. Fragilité rehashes the harmonies of Désir a little too obviously for my liking, but Ohlsson certainly
rehashed them well. Finally, there came the Fifth Sonata (and three Scriabin
encores!) Perhaps I was just too tired of Scriabin by then, but I struggled to
discern the work’s form, and I have no reason to think that was owed to the
performance. Might the composer perhaps have benefited from an editor?